


Big Sky Country

by KiriJones



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post Avengers, falling in love is hard on the knees, giving in is not the same as giving up, journeys, letting go is not the same as moving on, montana, pre winter soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-04-26 00:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4983193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiriJones/pseuds/KiriJones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of New York Steve Rogers takes off desperate to try and find some semblance of normalcy in the big and dangerous world he has awoken too. Finding himself in the majestic mountains and sprawling hills of Montana he settles into small town life. But every winding road has bumps and detours and Steve is losing his way quickly. Dr. Ava Aldrich is city girl who fled out West fighting a losing battle with cancer. Determined to live whatever time she has left with dignity and Grace Ava quickly clashes with the lumbering blonde construction worker who comes crashing into her life. Now two people fighting very different battles will collide. What comes next will change their lives and worlds forevermore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains.” ― Jeffrey Rasley

 

 

Looking in the mirror Ava Aldrich does her best to prepare herself to face the day. Her ivory skin is as pale as snow. It makes her look Even worse than the sickly creature that looks at her back from the surface of the mirror. Dark circles lay under her eyes as her sparse eyes lashes frame large hazel eyes. What is left of her light brown eyebrows is filled in with pencil and mascara is gently put on her fragile lashes. A blue scarf covers her bald head. 

Her collarbones protrude and her ribs are scarily visible. Freckles decorate her skin but they stand out as the sickly tone of her skin shines through no matter how much she tries to disguise it. Ava dresses in jeans and a warm woolen sweater and does her best to drink her sweetened green tea complete with honey and lemon. Going out onto her porch she breathes in the fresh mountain air and does her best to push down the feelings welling within her. 

Here among the glaciers and rocky roads and craggy mountains Ava has tried to find a small measure of peace in whatever time she has left. Once a whole she drives into the city to dutifully do her chemo to try and prolong the inevitable. But Ava knows the truth. She can feel it in her bones, she is dying. It is a harsh truth the rattles her brittle bones and makes her weak heart stutter. But as unyielding and dangerous as it may be it is also freeing in a strange and spectacular way. 

Ava is a doctor and she knows the odds. They are not in her favor. So she gave into her wanderlust a year prior and went West determined it not waste what was left in the smoggy and overpopulated metropolis of New York. Ava is free of the guessing game. She has a clear idea of how much time she has left and she chooses to spend it here beneath the big blue sky instead of a concrete jungle that holds nothing. there she is a nameless figure in the crowd. Here she has friends and knows she will be mourned and remembered in this small mountain community. Maybe it is selfish but Ava wants someone to remember her when she is gone. And she does not want to be alone.

So here she is a Harvard educated doctor working in a small clinic where most days she does nothing but meditate and visit with the other clinic workers as the doctors take the majority of the workload from her. On one hand it drives her crazy and on the other she enjoys having nothing better to do than look and breathe in the mountain air. There are two other doctors who are healthy and robust. She is the anchor that is slowing them down. But still she tries to do her best and be useful. 

It is a normal and cloudy Monday when Rodney Jenkins is brought in with nail through his foot from the new home that is being built at the top of the hill overlooking the lake that surrounds the town with its pristine clear water and deep hidden depths. Ava is the only one on duty and so she rushes to help the man who is clearly in pain. But as she meets him at the entrance of the clinic her attention falls to the large blonde man who carries Rodney in like he is nothing but a bag of apples. 

The man has hair shorn short with broad shoulders and muscles clearly defined under his flannel. Wearing worn jeans and steel toe shoes he seems like a ordinary construction worker that comes through every few weeks and then leaves once the job is done. Moves on from this small town onto bigger and brighter things, but none of the others passing through look like this man. 

he stands tall but does his best to blend into the background even though his imposing physical stature makes it impossible. His eyes are a blue as bright as the sky above but they are haunted by shadows Ava does not even want to guess the cause of. And just as she finishes with Rodney she sees him about to exit the clinic without even having the decency to check on his coworker.

Ava Aldrich is dying so mostly she does what she likes. So she rips into the man and lets her low opinion of him be known. She then waltzes off smirking and patting herself on the back for putting the bastard in his place. What she does not notice is the blue eyes that follow her retreating back. 

Over the course of the next few weeks every time she runs into the man she knows is named Steve she eyes his disdainfully for his old fashioned ways and all American looks that have everyone falling at his feet. Ava knows his type. He thinks he is secretly above everyone else and she knows he will always seem like a hero But in the end he will leave and never look back. He saves others and then does not stick around afterwords. It is something she has seen and lived and she has no desire to associate with.

but it seems fate is not on her side when she is in the parking lot of the local grocers and she suffers a seizure. She black out so she does not see a tall blonde man racing to her side, she does not see him frantically drive her to the clinic nor refuse to leave her side. She does not feel his haunted gaze upon her. Nor does she feel his large calloused hands gently hold onto her own.

but when Ava awakens and her eyes see the figure squashed into the small reclining chair beside her own snoring softly she is shocked. Steve is beside her bed sleeping and has been there for the past twelve hours it has taken for her to awaken. And when moments later his eyes flutter open and his sky blue gaze meets her own something changes.

Dr. Ava Aldrich is Living on borrowed time. She has no time for romance and complications. Yet her fragile and few horrors heart is now dancing a small staccato beat to a tune she is not familiar with. She is dying yet little does she know she is about to truly start living. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What are men to rocks and mountains?”  
> ― Jane Austen,

Once Ava leaves the hospital nothing really changes. She goes about her routine and does her best to live. She goes to Helena for chemo and always comes back wishing she was dead. She pencils in her eyebrows and covers her head with scarves. She mourns her hair. She has never been a vain person but she missed her thick orange red curls that she loved to braid and feel the wind blow through it. It was the only thing Ava shared with her mother. And more and more Ava finds herself missing her family. But all she has is a handful of cousins through her mothers side that she never sees and everyone on her fathers side is dead. 

Ava has no one, yes she has coworkers and friends, but no one to love and to cling to and to hold on to her in return. More than anything Ava simply wants to be needed and wanted in return. But she knows she will never have that. She is alone. And if she has one regret it is this: never having known a love worth fighting for.

 

 

 

After New York City Steve flees on the back of an old motorcycle determined to see the world and to experience life. He has to leave because if he stays one more day in Brooklyn haunted by the ghosts of Bucky and Peggy and his mother and the world he knew he will scream. 

So he heads West and finds himself in Montana. In a big enough town where he can blend in but not stand out too mucho the world does not know the identity of Captain America. All they know is that the superhero is back. They do not know of his mourning and pain and wishing he was back in the ice. The building of his hometown were suffocating. The wide opens plains, rolling foothills, and majestic mountains are what he needs.

the fresh air fills his lungs every day and he goes to work making an honest living in construction. He is helping to build a new school. Day after day he stays and sees the fruit of his labors. No one dies and no one is left behind unless it is lunch break or time to clock out. The men do not look at him with reference and awe. They yell and swear and treat him like a young man who needs to pull his weight to get paid. It is humbling and devastating and takes his mind off of Peggy and everything he has lost. 

When he helps usher a coworker to the town clinic after an accident he meets the newest town doctor. Ava Aldrich is about Peggy's height with sharp eyes and eyebrows pencilled in. Pale skin and a scarf wrapped around her head tell him part of her story. She is all jagged edges and sharp corners. And does not like him and the feeling is mutual. 

Ava Aldrich is arrogant and blunt and thinks he is a bug beneath her shoe. Every time they run into each other barbs are traded and insults thrown. She makes him angry and brings his temper to the forefront. In time he learns about her leukemia and cancer and how she came to Montana to die. 

Steve thinks she is a coward. She may not be pulling a trigger or jumping off a bridge but Ava is essentially sentencing herself to death. She does not even seems like she wants to fight. He thinks little of her but he slowly but surely sees she is capable of kindness with children at the clinic when he stops by to see his coworker. She smiles at the people around her and her face lights up when she does so.

and when he sees her collapse in the street he races forward to catch her without a second thought. He stays by her side in thr ambulance and he stays at the hospital sleeping in a rickety old chair. He stays until she wakes up and says his name and looks at him with eyes that seem to be older than her years.

She thanks him and he thinks that will be the end of it. It is not. Instead she starts to say hello to him on the street. She cautiously exchanges pleasantries with him at the local diner. He finds himself returning the gesture. This evolves into small smiles that make her face light up and her eyes younger and alive.

The local firehouse holds a potluck and Steve attends and brings some soup he barely managed to cook and make edible. She brings homemade cinnamon buns. It is a pleasant evening where he does not feel alone. Once the sun sets and the bonfire is li the finds himself sitting on the fringes at times watching the crowd and other times looking above and behind the town at the mountains and the shadows they cast. The moon is full and the stars are out.

he senses a presence at his side. Ava Aldrich wordlessly sit beside him and offers him a cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows. He accepts and offers a smile and his thanks. She smiles effortlessly and says nothing as she sits beside him wrapped in a blanket as she watches the stars with him. Their bodies are not touching but he can feel her beside him. 

Together they sit and she eventually falls asleep on his shoulder. Steve puts his arm around her to keep her upright. One of her coworkers comes and wakes her up to drive her home. His arms feels empty afterwords. That night he returns home. 

He dreams of starts and shadows and smiles. It is also the first night since he woke up from the ice he does no dream of Peggy


End file.
